Tests by Pet Food Maker Killed 7 Animals

By KATIE ZEZIMA; Theo Emery contributed reporting from Nashville, Dan Frosch from Denver and Carolyn Marshall from San Francisco.

Published: March 20, 2007

CORRECTION APPENDED

Of the 10 cats and dogs whose deaths have been linked to pet food that was recalled over the weekend, seven died in a test that the manufacturer began administering last month, the Food and Drug Administration said Monday.

The company, Menu Foods of Streetsville, Ontario, started testing its product on 40 to 50 animals on Feb. 27, one week after it began hearing from owners who said the food had made their pets ill, said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the agency's Center for Veterinary Medicine.

The company alerted the F.D.A. to its findings last week, and the agency has since opened a full investigation, Dr. Sundlof said. All the animals that ultimately died had begun showing signs of kidney failure, the agency said.

In addition to those seven tested animals, at least three pets have died after eating contaminated food, Dr. Sundlof said, and the number is expected to rise as officials work to confirm the precise number.

Menu Foods manufactures products for brand names like Eukanuba, Iams, Science Diet and Nutro Natural Choice, as well as some store brands for companies including Wal-Mart, Winn-Dixie, Hannaford and Price Chopper. The full list is available from Menu Foods at www.menufoods.com/recall.

More than 60 million cans and pouches of the company's wet-style food have been recalled. The F.D.A. is focusing on wheat gluten, a protein used as filler in the food's manufacture, as the likely source of contamination. Menu Foods and Dr. Sundlof said the illnesses had coincided with the timing of the company's use of a new wheat gluten supplier.

Sarah Tuite, a spokeswoman for Menu Foods, said: ''We just don't know exactly what's causing the problems. All we know is the illness coincided with the introduction of a new supplier. I think we're looking at everything right now.''

Dr. Sundlof would not identify the supplier other than to say it dealt only with manufacturers of pet food and had plants in Kansas City, Mo., and New Jersey. Most of the contaminated lots originated at the Kansas City plant, he said.

''We don't have any information that any other manufacturer has been supplied ingredients from this particular supplier,'' he said. ''We are working feverishly to determine that.''

Dr. Sundlof urged people who think their pet might have been affected to contact their local F.D.A. office and a veterinarian. Symptoms of kidney failure include lethargy, loss of appetite and vomiting, he said. Cats, he said, are more likely to be affected than dogs.

Around the country, worried owners of dogs and cats kept veterinarians' offices and pet stores busy fielding calls yesterday, concerned that the food might have sickened their pets.

Lisa Moses, a staff veterinarian at Angell Animal Medical Center-Boston, said the emergency room had been flooded with pet owners. The hospital said that one cat had died and two dogs been stricken with kidney failure in the last week and that it was reviewing all the renal cases it had seen in the last few months.

In Denver, PetSmart stores were referring customers to manufacturer hotlines -- (866) 463-6738 and (866) 895-2709 -- and in San Francisco, employees at a cat hospital tried to calm nervous callers.

Amanda Cassetty, a veterinarian at the Murphy Road Animal Hospital in Nashville, said her clinic received about 100 calls from worried pet owners on Saturday and 30 more by midafternoon yesterday.

Marcella Nelson of Mattapoisett, Mass., changed her cat's food to Iams after a checkup on Feb. 5 where kidney function was tested and was found to be normal. A week later, the cat became lethargic and would not eat, and a test on Feb. 20 showed that it was suffering from kidney failure and had to be euthanized. Ms. Nelson, who did not throw out the food, said the product numbers matched those in the recall.

''We are angry,'' she said. ''We thought we were doing a better thing for our cat, improving her food. You trust these companies that have these reputations, and you expect them not to poison your animals with the food they sell.''

Elizabeth Krottinger of Anderson, Tex., usually feeds her five dogs dry food but bought them wet Nutro Natural Choice-brand turkey and gravy, and chicken and rice, as a treat for the birthday of her mini pinscher Minnie. The dogs started becoming sick in the days after eating the food March 11, and all were hospitalized last week with kidney damage. They are recovering but might have to be placed on a restricted diet indefinitely.

Day Keel of Basking Ridge, N.J., had to euthanize her dog, Soju, on March 5 after he suffered from kidney and liver failure -- a result, she suspects, of his eating the tainted food. Soju, a mutt the family adopted while living in Korea, ate Natural Choice chicken with rice and gravy and started vomiting the next day. Within a week, he was found to have renal failure.

Photos: Elizabeth Krottinger's dog Poochi has been hospitalized in Texas because of pet food that has been recalled. (Photo by Allison V. Smith for The New York Times); More than 60 million cans and pouches of wet-style pet food were recalled over the weekend. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Correction: March 21, 2007, Wednesday
Because of an editing error, an article yesterday about a pet food recall included an erroneous phone number in some copies for a manufacturer hotline. It is (866) 895-2708.

Correction: March 24, 2007, Saturday
An article on Wednesday about a recall of pet food misidentified the hometown of Elizabeth Krottinger, who said her dogs were hospitalized with kidney damage after eating the food. It is Addison, Tex. -- not Anderson.